Performance and Mobility Measures for TMCs

1. Performance and Mobility Measures for TMCs

2. Project Intent • Provide a Guidebook • Technical guidance and recommended practices for Traffic Management Center performance monitoring • Include: • Case studies as illustrative examples • Identify best practices and lessons learned, • at system level • for specific scenarios or locations

3. Guidebook Audience and Users • Targeted end users • TMC managers, • Supervisors • Operators • Also anyone with a role in TMS/TMC • performance monitoring, • evaluation, and • reporting

4. Guidebook Overview • Two volumes: • Guidebook • Reference Manual Source: WSDOT flickr

5. The Guidebook Volume • Guidebook: • Executives and upper management the audience • An overview of measures and issues • The “what” and “why” of performance monitoring • Helps an agency get started in performance management

6. Reference Manual Volume • The details of “how” to do performance management • A synopsis of each performance measure (or group of related performance measures), • An overview of each measure’s • Usefulness, • Required data sources, • Primary calculation steps or equations, • Examples of useful variations of the measure, • Issues or implementation considerations • Example applications from TMCs around the country

7. Both Volumes • Contain introductory material • Acknowledge that each TMC is different • Provide advice that says to report • On activities performed • Over the geographic area the TMC covers • Start with “basic” measures, and grow to become more advanced to meet changing TMC needs

8. Both Volumes • Split the technical measures into four sections, reflecting potential TMC roles and reporting needs • TMC operations • Incident response • System mobility • Cross-cutting • One chapter per set of measures

9. Also • Guidebook • Lessons learned • General guidance and considerations • Reference Manual • Case studies • Examples • References to more details / examples

10. Advice • Performance reporting generally grows as follows: • What we are doing? • How well are we doing those activities? • What is happening on the roadway? • How is what we are doing effecting what is happening on the roadway?

11. Recommended Approach • Start simple, use the data you have • Basic measures • Improve/enhance the data as you use it • Compute detailed metrics to manage the TMC • Report by region / time / category • Supplement basic data to add capabilities • Report roadway performance • Where you have data • Expand coverage when you are able • Combine data to discover cause / effect relationships

12. TMC Operations

13. TMC Operations – Example Details • Number of Devices • Coverage • Miles covered • AADT exposed to DMS

14. TMC Operations – Example Details • Use • Number of times services were used/viewed • Number of times equipment was used • Device Availability/Maintenance Activities • Average Device Availability • Number of repairs/trouble tickets by device type

15. Incident Response Measures • Basic Measures • Number of assists and services provided • Verification time • Response time • Roadway clearance time • Incident clearance time • Number of secondary crashes • Service patrol operations summary

16. Incident Management: Incident Time Source: MoDOT Tracker - Measures of Departmental Performance, July 2012 Source: Washington State DOT The Gray Notebook, Quarter Ending June 30, 2011

17. Incident Response Measures • Report by: • Location • Time of day • Incident attributes • Truck involved • Lane blocking • Fatal / injury involved / property damage / minor • Duration • <30 min, 30 > x <90, >90 Source: RITIS

18. Safety Service Patrol • Motorists feedback, typically obtained through comment cards, provides a qualitative review of performance • Effective mechanism for showing visible public support Source: WisDOT Bureau of Traffic Operations, Statewide Traffic Operations Center (STOC) 2011 Annual Performance Measures Report

19. System Mobility • Basic roadway performance • Speed at which traffic is flowing • Volume of use • A variety of ways to present speed and volume • Delay • Travel time and reliability • Person, freight, and vehicle volumes • Geographic, temporal diversity • Summary statistics

20. Basic Mobility Measures • Where is congestion? • How often does it occur? • When does it occur? • How long does it last? • Described at the location and corridor level • Speed or frequency of congestion, versus • Travel time • How many people/vehicles/trucks are using the system?

21. Basic Measures: Where is Congestion? Source: GoogleMaps

22. Computed Basic Measures: Travel Time& Travel Time Reliability 95th Percentile Travel Time Mean Travel Time by Time of Day

23. Basic Measures • Use tabular summaries to • Provide statistics for many locations / corridors • Track trends over time • Tailor the reporting statistics and presentation format to your audience

24. Computed Basic Measures • Can mathematically compute indices when comparing routes of different length • Travel Time Index • Planning Time Index • Buffer Time Index • MT3I

25. As Data/Experience Grows • More sophisticated reporting can be undertaken • Person throughput or delay • Truck use and delay • Lost highway productivity • HOV versus GPlane performance • Regional VMT • Veh. hrs of delay

26. Advanced Statistics: Lost Productivity Frequency of Congestion

27. Cross Cutting Measures • Measuring changes in outcomes • Congestion • Throughput • Travel time • As a result of activities of TMC • Incident response • Traffic management plans/controls • Disruption response (e.g., snow plow operations)

28. Before / After Studies: Effect of Ramp Meters • Report outcome of new traffic control activities • Requires “before” data 170 veh / hr / ln improvement LOS Foccurs 1 day per week less often

29. Cross Cutting Measures • Answer key benefits questions • Value of incident response • Speed with which roads recover from events • Often need to first define terms • Incident delay • Recovery time

30. Lessons Learned • Take stock of your existing data • Identify your near-term monitoring needs • Start with what you canreport • Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good • Collect data that describe TMC activities • Set goals and monitor results • Track and report trends • Use outcomes to actively manage staff/resources • Report using language the audience understands

31. Questions?? Ram Kandarpa Booz Allen Hamilton (202) 203-3926 kandarpa_ram@bah.com Cliff Conklin HNTB Corporation 703-824-5100 cconklin@hntb.com Mark Hallenbeck TRAC-University of Washington (206) 543-6261 tracmark@u.washington.edu